Design

Futuristic typeface echoes art nouveau designs

By Cameron Chapman

February 12, 2013

Is there anything better than a font named after the Spanish word for cockroach? Maybe a font named after that combined with the word "future"?

Futuracha is just that font. It's a beautiful display font that's great for things like logos or posters. Because of how stylized it is, it's not suitable for body copy.

But that doesn't mean it isn't incredibly fabulous. The swooshes, exaggerated serifs, and irregular x-heights of the letterforms give it a very fluid, artistic look and feel. In normal text, the letters overlap, creating sometimes very interesting shapes and changing the overall look of the type.

Even in an example as simple as the alphabet, it's amazing the number of awesome shapes and surprising effects that occur. Standard typographical testing phrases like "The quick brown fox…" also produce great results. With some tweaking, Futuracha makes it easy to create fantastic typographical designs.

Futuracha was designed by Odysseas GP of Athens, Greece while in graphic design school, in a typography course with professor K. Giotas. The design is roughly based on the forms of PF Futura Book, which the designer considers to have an ideal weight. Serifs are based on Claude Garamond typefaces.

The letterforms are reminiscent of the art nouveau style. Both Greek and Latin character sets are included, as well as numbers and symbols. It's a great font to experiment with, as different letter combinations can form surprising visuals.

You can download Futuracha for free, though the designer would like to be contacted before using it for professional projects. Currently, Futuracha is available in .eps format, but will soon be available as a .ttf file (though from the look of it, that will not be free).

What kinds of designs would you use Futuracha for? Let us know in the comments!